Here's something from a Chinese surname contributor!
(Chinese-Malaysian)
Singapore and China are becoming increasingly close allies.
My prediction is that as the reality of Chinese capitalism
and the current ideology of "Socialism with Chinese
Characteristics" becomes even more untenable, official
Chinese ideology will surreptitiously change to resemble that
of Singapore's.
Singapore's ideology: elite rule by scholar-bureaucrats/technocrats,
(Revival of the traditional Chinese scholar-bureaucrat Mandarin)
"We deliver the goods and you shut up and follow orders"
Western values are decadent and are responsible for
its decline. Asians ought to turn to "Asian Values".
Singaporean version of the American Dream - Singapore as
a true meritocracy (notwithstanding the fact of subtle discrimination
against its Malay population).
State-sponsored capitalism.
Little mention is made of the fact that Singaporean prosperity is
due largely to its competitive success in attracting capital and
investment from Japan, USA, Europe etc. Similarly, little mention is
made of the fact that foreign skilled labor is another major factor.
I remember reading somewhere that 1/3 of the faculty of the
National U. of Singapore are Malaysian and that 1/4 of its
bureaucracy are Malaysian also (Malaysian = overwhelmingly
Chinese-Malaysian). Also, that emigration from Singapore is
high in relation to its population size.
Having worked in Singapore for 2 years, I can testify to the
fact that Weber's prediction of the "iron cage of rationality"
certainly applies to Singapore!
P.S. Goh Keng Swee (principal architect of Singapore's
economic success) is an economic adviser to the
Chinese regime. Goh has a PhD in economics from
LSE.
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 16:38:03 -0400 (EDT)
Reply-to: akwebb@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
From: "Adam K. Webb" <akwebb@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Moore, Barendse, and a disheartening scenario
(I have temporary consolation for Warren over the lack of Chinese surnamed
contributors. I use a Chinese name for dealing with non-English-speaking
Chinese: "Wei Yadang")
On Mon, 13 Oct 1997, Richard K. Moore wrote:
> I can't imagine such a scenario. Can you? Britain simply didn't keep up
> its military dominance - it was eclipsed by at least the US, Japan, and
> Germany. The US is taking care not to lose its dominance - is in fact
> bleeding its population dry to maintain hegemony.
It seems that the two _primary_ reasons why hegemony passed to the US were
1) that the US population, and thus economy, were significantly larger and
consequently more capable of sustaining hegemonic responsibilities, much
as presumably was the case with the Netherlands earlier, and 2) that US
national ideology was more "purely" liberal and thus suited to the
evolving legitimacy of global capitalism. Now whether I can imagine a
transfer of this type depends, as I believe I made clear initially, mainly
on the course of Chinese economic and political development. If China
draws closer to core per capita income levels (which I doubt, and from a
revolutionary strategic standpoint hope is not the case), then its economy
would be vastly more suited to hegemonic responsibilities than the US
economy. There is no way that the US could continue to play its current
role with an economy one-quarter the size of China's, any more than
Britain could have continued in 1945 even if the will had been there (and
to some extent it was, eg. Churchill). Thus condition (1) could be met.
Condition (2) depends on the stability and ideological formulation of
Chinese capitalism. The Chinese "red capitalist" elite clearly envisions
turning the current authoritarianism into a new "East Asian" paradigm, as
evidenced in their praise of Singapore and their new corporate-dominated
representation system in Hong Kong. This freewheeling capitalism combined
with technocratic public administration, public apathy, and depoliticised
civil society could very well be highly suited to the New World Order. If
the Chinese state can prevent the post-miracle Brazil scenario
(stagnation, popular resistance, etc.) that I suspect will occur, then
condition (2) also could be met.
> I'm simply going by what the Chinese elite themselves have stated - that
> they see China's "rightful role" as being an Asian hegemon. This is flatly
> contradictory to stated "US interests".
I think the Chinese elite's position is a little more ambiguous than that.
First, what about their longstanding conflict with India over the
appropriateness of regionally-based influence spheres? India wishes to be
a regional hegemon in the Indian Subcontinent and Indian Ocean; China
vociferously rejects the notion of geographically demarcated spheres of
influence. Second, to the limited extent that China wishes to be an "East
Asian hegemon," that is either a stepping stone to more diffuse global
influence (otherwise its cultivation of Africa over the last twenty years
would be a waste of diplomatic energy), or a position defined only in
opposition to US strength in the area. Third, even if there is a regional
focus of China's hegemony in an interim stage, providing Zhongnanhai is
"safely" in the hands of "right-thinking" Kennedy School graduates (within
ten to fifteen years, I suspect) why is that _necessarily_ less
acceptable to the United States than French hegemony in West Africa? I
could imagine a scenario in which, once Chinese global superiority is
realised by the US to be inevitable, such an interim
accommodation/partnership would be seen as a proving ground (just as the
growing US role in Latin America and Oceania in the late 1800s partly
was).
> > The US/NATO axis is serving very well as agent of
> international capitalism - why would it allow itself to be usurped?
I am not sure which part of "itself" is relevant--the flags or the
interests under the flags? The former are less important than they were;
the latter are very pragmatic about which mercenaries they choose.
> Most of the northern population doesn't believe neocolonialism even
> exists. They consider that a "conspiracy theory".
> I don't know anyone personally who favors domination and exploitation of
> the periphery. They accede to it because they are told it isn't happening,
> not because they favor it in principle.
They may not throw the word "neocolonialism" around their coffee tables,
but they have a very clear sense of their relative position in the world
and the risks that a less than assertive position vis-a-vis the South
would entail. Huntingtonian machismo is not simply a product of the
Washington-London-Paris policy environment; propaganda about the need to
return Argentina, Grenada, Iraq, Panama, etc. to their rightful places did
not create its own resonance among the relevant Northern populations.
And on Mon, 13 Oct 1997, barendse wrote:
> And it took two goes and decimation of a generation for Britain to
> get to the point that it was willing to hand over the role of global
bully.
> In other words, as long as we are drawing loose historical analogies, if
> the US / China relationship is pictured as similar to turn of century
Great
> Britain / US, why is this picture more compelling than the picture of
> Great Britain / Napeolonic France. Hey, for the latter case, both
> Napoleonic France and China have more or less had a revo and a terror
> or two.
To go back to the beginning of this post, neither condition (1) nor
condition (2) plausibly held. The French economy/population size was not
superior to Britain's, and thus could not permit France to fulfil the
hegemonic role more effectively. And Napoleon's disparaging comment about
Britain as a "nation of shopkeepers" does not bespeak great ideological
suitability for the bully's shoes. China, on the other hand,
_potentially_ could fulfil both requirements if history is sufficiently
unkind and inconvenient to grant the Chinese Huntingtons their wish.
Finally, I have an additional thought. I believe it was Joshua Goldstein
(?) who suggested that hegemonic succession occurs when one rising power
challenges the old hegemon, is defeated by an alliance between the old
hegemon and another (slightly stronger) rising power, and then the second
rising power becomes the new hegemon. Should this be the case, one
disheartening possibility is that a pan-Southern transnational
revolutionary movement circa 2015 challenges the US-EU-J core, US-EU-J
core allies with a moderately prosperous China to suppress the uprising,
US-EU-J suffer some ideological discrediting globally and some economic
damage from immigrant/underclass volatility during the crisis, and China
is left standing relatively unscathed as the new capitalist hegemon.
Chinese authoritarianism would seem far more credible than residual
US-EU-J notions of humanitarian restraint as the response to Southern
insurgency; TNC patience could yield, in such a crisis, to nostalgia for
the decisiveness of June 4, 1989, except this time PLA tanks would roll
over people in Calcutta, Nairobi, Teheran, etc. And a moderately
developed China might even be able, simultaneously and somewhat
paradoxically, to cast itself as a more pro-Southern hegemon in touch with
the needs of the world's poor because of its own history. Since I am fond
of China-Brazil comparisons, this outcome would be "Ordem e Progresso" on
a world scale. This combination of brutality and mirage would hold at
least until the revolutionary forces regroup and broaden their critique to
focus it more on China. The practical implication of this scenario is
that those who favour global revolution should cast the struggle in such a
way as, among many other things, to forestall any such reconstructive
pretences on the part of Chinese or other rising elites. There should be
no "third choice" whatsoever between US-EU-J and world revolution. Any
thoughts on that?
Regards,
--AKW
===============================================================================
Adam K. Webb
Department of Politics
Princeton University
Princeton NJ 08544 USA
609-258-9028